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GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS – part 2

By James Ron | February 3, 2023

                             GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS – part 2                           part 1 The first two of the five years I worked on the river we made more than our expenses. I kept a record of our trips and the amount of gold we found.  We averaged three trips a month from April through November and…

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GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS – part 1

By James Ron | January 27, 2023

                GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS – part 1  The big nuggets and easy pickings are gone. You have to move a lot of dirt and rock. It is physically demanding, but there still is gold in them thar hills, and plenty of it.  Over a lot of time, the gold will eventually work its…

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SUMMERTIME, AND LIVIN’ WAS EASY

By James Ron | January 20, 2023

                                   SUMMERTIME, AND LIVIN’ WAS EASY  Before calling it a day, usually in the wee hours of the morning, I’d go to the Club’s kitchen and get a cantaloupe-sized loaf of bread, baked fresh that evening for whatever occasion was going on, and an RC Cola. Then I headed over to the marina, out to…

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IT IS A SMALL WORLD 

By James Ron | January 13, 2023

                                      IT IS A SMALL WORLD  The takeaway from this story is – When you come across someone with the same last name as yours, look into it further. You never know where it might lead, and you could miss out on what might come of it. It is a small world.  The first of…

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A HANK WILLIAMS STORY – ON THE BAYOU – part 4

By James Ron | January 8, 2023

Our Story continues with Hank calling Jim to come over to provide a drumbeat, and a young girl, Lonnie shows up with her flute asking if she can play. John returns in mid song. – –                                                                                                   part 1, part 2, part 3                                              A Hank Williams Story – part 4 – – “I Saw…

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A HANK WILLIAMS STORY – ON THE BAYOU – part 3

By James Ron | December 30, 2022

Our Story continues with John doing another song. He departs saying he’ll be back, and Anna Louise arrives with her fiddle, followed shortly thereafter by her brother, Tommy, with his banjo and guitar – –                                                                                                                       part 1, part 2                                        A HANK WILLIAMS STORY – part 3  – – “I Won’t Be Home No…

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A HANK WILLIAMS STORY – ON THE BAYOU – part 2

By James Ron | December 23, 2022

Our Story continues with John after having joined Hank and George on the dock –                                                                                                                                part 1                                 A HANK WILLIAMS STORY – part 2 – – “Lost Highway” 1949  John spoke first. “I just got to go now. It’s been a pleasure.”  “Same here!” answered Hank, and George. “Be…

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A HANK WILLIAMS STORY – ON THE BAYOU – part 1

By James Ron | December 16, 2022

    “A Hank Williams Story – On the Bayou” takes place in Southwest Louisiana, early November, 1952. Sixteen “Hank” songs, in one hour. There is an ongoing narration between each track. It starts with just Hank and his guitar, and builds, an instrument at a time, as others join in. For a brief time, Hank…

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ALONG THE CAPE COD NATIONAL SEASHORE

By James Ron | December 9, 2022

                      ALONG THE CAPE COD NATIONAL SEASHORE  For a while, when I lived on Cape Cod, I lived in the small town of Eastham, at the southern end of the Cape Cod National Seashore. We had scored a year-round rental, which wasn’t easy. Being the tourist destination that it is, most rentals had one price…

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RUNNING BEYOND THE MARATHON

By James Ron | December 2, 2022

                                           RUNNING BEYOND THE MARATHON  Besides making a habit of your running, discovering how to train for running 100 miles, how to avoid being over-trained and under-recovered, how when it comes to nutrition, less is more, and best in liquid form, and knowing the difference between being hurt, or being tired and aching, and…

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Indian

INDIANS AT THE LAKE AT CAMP EDGEWOOD

By James Ron | September 16, 2022

The Scouts would arrive on Sunday morning and depart the following Saturday morning, all working on merit badges through the courses provided. There were, give or take, a hundred and twenty-five per week. We had a six-week camping schedule*. On Tuesday evenings, the families of the Scouts were invited to come up for a visit, which…

ALLIGATORS AND LOST PILOTS WITH JEFF TATE

By James Ron | September 9, 2022

There were a few nights hunting alligators and lost pilots with Jeff Tate. I was the rowing and canoeing instructor at Camp Edgewood Boy Scout Camp. Jeff was the archery instructor. He was an excellent archer. I was pretty good, and we hit it off easily. Jeff used to work as a roughneck on the…

Death Valley Sand Dunes

BADWATER – MY WORST AND BEST RACE – part 3

By James Ron | September 2, 2022

                                                                                             part 1, part 2  This was the best of my Badwater experience.  It is interesting how things develop. While visiting home, I went birding with my brother Dale. That began my own interest and as I had been hiking, it was easy to combine them both. I did many miles on nearby Mt. Diablo…

BADWATER – MY WORST AND BEST RACE – part 2

By James Ron | August 26, 2022

                                                                                                   part 1, of 3  Badwater is a big event, drawing elite men and women from around the world. Excellent times and great competition are the norm. Much can go wrong, and right. Not unexpectedly, some slower runners will do very well, surprising everyone, and themselves. The final time cutoff was 60 hours when…

Badwater Basin

BADWATER – MY WORST AND BEST RACE – part 1

By James Ron | August 19, 2022

The Badwater 135-Mile Endurance Run, “The World’s Toughest Footrace,” is run through Death Valley and halfway up Mt. Whitney in the middle of July. Badwater – my worst and best race. If you make it. I didn’t. I sat on the porch of my cabin at Panamint Springs, sipping on a beer. I had run…

The Red-Eye to Las Vegas

The Red-Eye to Las Vegas | One More Silver Dollar

By James Ron | August 12, 2022

This is how we came to catch the red-eye flight to Las Vegas. I got a call from a real estate salesman promoting a housing development in Las Vegas. He said that if I could answer his question correctly, and then attend a sales pitch seminar, I would get a ticket for two to Las…

Castles On The Rhine From A River Barge

By James Ron | August 5, 2022

It wasn’t easy getting from the airport into Amsterdam. I began thinking my hitchhiking through Europe might not be a good idea. I only had two months to travel.   At the hostel I stayed in the first night, I heard I could get a Eurail pass at their office in Utrecht. Normally, the ticket…

The Chase – Raccoons At Night

By James Ron | July 29, 2022

I used to babysit for a family that lived up the street on the corner. I was around eleven, or twelve. Johnny, the dad, would often take me hunting. He had dogs.   Hunting, and fishing, was a way of life in my neck of the woods. It was depended on as a food source by…

Bear Encounter On Mt. Marcy, New York

By James Ron | July 23, 2022

A friend of mine lived near Mt. Marcy in New York. It is the highest point in the state at 5344′. I thought that while I was visiting, my dog, Kink, and I, would do an overnight camping trip to the summit, camp for the night at a campground on another trail going down the…

tornado

Rare Tornado In West Virginia

By James Ron | July 15, 2022

We were on the last leg of our round trip across the country heading back to Cape Cod when a rare tornado in West Virginia caught up with us. In Mississippi, we ran into a springtime storm system tracking northeast that the radio weather folks promised to bring tornadoes. As we moved deeper into the…